Chapter 10
Still numb, June finally swung the car into the driveway at home. Then, as in a trance, she slowly got out, opened the garage door, drove the car inside and closed the door from the inside. The engine was still running. She got back inside the car, sat down on the front seat behind the wheel, rolled both front windows down and rested her head against the back of the seat. Sadly, she inhaled deeply ... then again ... and again....
Visions of her bizarre behavior of the past few weeks flashed before her eyes, and an all-consuming remorse engulfed her being. How very insane I've been, she thought, inhaling the exhaust fumes deeply. I gave myself, my body, to total strangers, let them use me, defile me.
And the sanity that seizes all would-be suicides gripped June Horvath totally. She saw no way out of the degradation she had just exposed herself to at the hands of two sex-freaks, Hank and Jill. She felt dirty, ugly, incapable of ever cleansing herself. Briefly, she envisioned a little girl-innocent, bright-eyed, trusting, moral, good, pure, loving. And the girl was June Horvath, little Junie who had sat on her father's lap so long ago in that simple time of life, her childhood in the uncomplicated world of West Los Angeles.
I am going to join you now, Mother, she thought. Father, I'm coming to be with you ... I am sorry ... so sorry. June breathed deeply, very deeply. The exhaust fumes filled the dark garage now and she could make out the billows of wavering fumes, but just barely. She coughed once, twice, and then she inhaled again, her head back again, resting, seeking what she conceived as eternal rest....
There was a sharp sting, then another. A pleading voice, high-pitched and urgent, kept calling her name. There it came again, the stinging impact and the voice repeating her name: "June! June! Wake up!" the shrill cries kept demanding.
June felt her head moving in response to the stinging sensations, first on one cheek, and then the other. At first, for just an instant, she tried to mouth the word "Mother ... Mother." But then the awful heaviness in her entire body and the piercing headache told her that she was not dead, not in some after-life after all. She blinked, focusing her eyes with difficulty. The first thing she saw was the familiar dining room chandelier, and then, digging her fingers into something at either side of her, she realized that she was lying on her back on her own living room floor. Her hands groped at the thick carpet and the chandelier came clearer and clearer into focus. Finally, she recognized the voice as Mandy's.
"June! Oh, thank God. ... You're awake. Junie, I was terrified!"
It was Mandy Lewis. Her best friend had somehow saved her life and she was not in heaven or hell but right there on her own living room floor. Her first feeling was one of intense and exquisite relief. The thought of dying was repugnant to her. The terrible depression that had insanely driven her to take her life had passed and now she felt only intense gratitude. The insanity had passed.
She cried, and Mandy cradled her head in her lap from her kneeling position there beside her.
"Mandy ... Mandy," she heard herself mumbling. "I'm alive ... Oh, Mandy!"
And then they were both muttering thanks and repeating each other's' name. Finally, June got to her feet and Mandy helped her over to the couch, where she sat while Mandy went and fixed coffee. Then they sat sipping coffee while June's head slowly cleared.
Inevitably, Mandy said, "But why? Why would you try such a thing, Junie?"
June shook her head, breathing the clean air in deeply, filling her lungs with the fresh and delicious taste of life. "There is no good reason," June said, crying once again. And then she told Mandy everything, about her meeting with Hank and Jill, about the way she hated herself for her disgusting behavior of these past weeks. She told Mandy everything except about meeting her husband, Gene, at the Aqua-Sex Motel.
No, she knew that would be a self-indulgent unkindness to inflict that on Mandy. "And so I simply decided to-to go to sleep forever." She brushed the tears from her eyes and reached out and hugged Mandy. "But it was a momentary insanity. It's passed. Mandy, I can never tell you how-how glad I am that you cared enough to-to stop by I-I feel fine now-well, much better anyway. God, I'm alive!" And again the two women embraced.
They parted and Mandy let out a long sigh. "I really have no idea what brought me here. Maybe it was telepathy or something. I mean, I could have phoned you and just assumed you were out shopping or something. But-but for some reason I just decided to stop in and-well, chat and have a cup of coffee.
They were both silent for a long time then, as if meditating.
Finally, Mandy said: "Pardon a bit of harsh advice from a very good friend?"
June nodded, smiling. "Give me any advice you want. I'll listen to anything you have to say whenever you want to say it. Forever. Shoot."
"Well, June, it seems obvious to me, but maybe it isn't so obvious to you. Sit tight because I'm going to level with you. June, you have always been a very guilt-ridden lady. I think 'lady' is the key word. June, you were raised by very square parents who overprotected you, and you've always seemed to view yourself as pure."
June nodded, listening. She knew Mandy would not lie to her, not now. For the first time in a very long time she actually was listening to someone about to criticize her.
"I mean, you're the kind of female who hasn't been able-until very recently-to say shit if you had a mouth full of it. You've been a very unrealistic female, June. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine until that night with Gene and me you hadn't even balled anyone other than Gene."
June nodded. "That's true," she said. "I was a virgin until Norm, and then we got married not long after my first time." Again, June did not mention that Gene had seduced her just prior to that first foursome with Norm, Gene and Mandy. The main thing was, what Mandy was saying was true. She had been a "square" the worst kind-all her life. A fantasizing, secretly-masturbating square, true, but nevertheless a square, a prude, a better-than-youguys, snooty, morally-superior 'square.'
"Yes, that's what I'm getting at," Mandy said. "Hey, I'm no psychiatrist, but I can tell you that when a girl like you decides to get out there among 'em sexually-well, she's bound to feel a lot of remorse, one helluva lot of guilt." She patted June's cheek. "It just ganged up on you, baby. That's all. You faced a crisis with those two freaks, Hank and Jill, and all of a sudden the training of a lifetime, the puritanical attitudes and the sin overwhelmed you. If it hadn't been Hank and Jill it probably would have been something else. You were on a collision course-self-destructive really."
"Mandy, I think you should have been a psychiatrist." She frowned, shaking her head. "Jesus, what you just said hit me right between the eyes. You're right. I was asking for it all right. But what should I do? What can I do? I can't go back."
Mandy laughed, the old devilish gleam in her lovely eyes. "Of course you can't go back," she said. "And you shouldn't. The old you wasn't any more real than the briefly freaky you. Look, there's nothing wrong with the group thing. We did it in the privacy of our own home and everybody wanted it. And then at The Caves we went to a place where people went for that kind of sex scene of their own volition. Nobody sinned. Nobody did anything wrong."
June felt terribly confused. "We didn't?"
"See?" Mandy said. "Way down deep you still have the guilts. You still have the feeling that you 'sinned.' Well, you didn't I Hell, no! There's nothing wrong with wanting the things you've wanted or doing the things we've done. Like, who's hurt? Or look at it another way ... You found out something important about yourself you never would have known."
"Then why do I feel so damned guilty?"
Mandy gave June's shoulder a playful shove with her fist. "Because you were raised to think sex is evil-especially weird and evil things like orgies. But the only tiling evil that happened-if that's what it is, evil I mean, were those two assholes who deceived you, who lied to you, who hurt you and used you against your will. And hell, in any situation people who lie, hurt and me are evil, right?"
June nodded, comprehending slowly. "Yes, I guess that's true."
"Damn right it's true. Those two ding-a-lings would be evil if they were retail clerks behind a counter, car salesman, college professors, artists, plumbers, whatever. I mean, it's the lying, doing things to people that hurt them, the cheating and making them do things by force that is evil. I mean, is masturbation evil? Who the hell are you hurting? But you were probably raised to believe to think you were evil if you did it. No wonder you feel guilty but you shouldn't and you don't have to. You're one helluva nice girl-I mean swell person, OK? And that's all I have to say."
June was smiling now, loving the feeling of smiling honestly without the guilt way down inside, hiding there. She felt an indescribable release. She felt that she would never have to hide the real June again. It was maybe the best she had felt in her whole life. "Wow!" she blurted. "Maybe I should have been Catholic or something. I confessed and I feel marvelous. Jesus, I just tried to Mil myself and already I feel better than I can ever remember. You're my priestess, Mandy. No fooling."
Again, they embraced. "Well, let's not get sacrilegious," Mandy said, grinning. "The main thing is you feel good, sugar, and we'll never mention what nearly happened out there in that garage to anyone, correct?"
"Correct," June said. She got up then and did a pirouette. She stretched, standing on the balls of her feet. "God bless America," she sang, " ... land that I love...."
"Oh, my God," Mandy said, shaking her head, but smiling. "Now she's getting patriotic on me. Hey, let's have a drink so we don't get to feeling too pure, all right?"
"That sounds like a marvelous idea," June said.
In the kitchen, June poured two very strong bourbons with a dash of water, plopped ice cubes in the old-fashioned glasses and they sat down and stared out the window. From the family-room table-from that vantage point-they could see a moving van in front of one of the houses across the street.
"Hmm, I wonder who's moving in," she said, watching the uniformed men loading furniture through the front door. "I don't even know who's moving out. Damn I've been clannish. Don't even know the neighbors, really."
June sipped her drink, and then Mandy drank down half of hers and offered a toast. "To the new June," she said. "To the June who will now proceed in life with moderation in all things. Including orgies." She shrugged. "Ah, moderation ... maybe just two or three orgies a week, and then only with friends."
"I'll drink to that," June said, giggling. She could feel the warm glow of the alcohol mingling with her newfound feeling of release.
They fixed another drink in a few minutes and continued staring out the window at the moving men at the house across the street. Pretty soon a red sports car, a Masarati, pulled to a hasty stop in front and a young couple got out and stood watching the movers. The man said something to one of the movers, and then he signed something the man offered him on a clipboard.
"The new neighbors," Mandy said. "Hey, he's cute. He looks a little like Robert Wagner, huh?"
Mandy's voice sounded a little slurred. She was getting tipsy. She wasn't used to drinking so early in the day. And when June spoke she realized she was feeling just the least bit tipsy too.
"No," June contradicted, 'I'd say he looks more like a very young Clark Gable, or maybe George Hamilton."
"Clark Gable?" Mandy said, bunching her face up. "Christ, why not say he looks like Valentino-yeah, Rudolph Valentino!"
They both giggled hilariously.
"Sir Francis Drake," June said.
"No, Ponce de Leon," Mandy said.
"I bet he has a big one," June said. "Whoever he is!"
Mandy held up her little finger. "Huh-uh, I bet it's more like this."
Again, they doubled up with laughter. Tears flowed down their cheeks as they giggled and sputtered and guffawed outlandishly.
June finally got control of herself and dabbed at her eyes. She winked. "Well, we'll soon know, won't we? Let's invite the new couple over for a 'Get Acquainted Party.' What do you say?"
"That's a terrific idea," Mandy said. "But I hope she's not as square as you. I mean, just think of her having to go through all that guilt crap."
"Oh, yes," June said. "Ugh, that would be awful. Say, maybe we shouldn't invite her. She's too pretty anyway. Look at that body. Norm and Gene would go ga-ga."
"Aw, what the hell," Mandy said. "So they can have her, and we can have him, huh?"
"That sounds fair to me," June said. "Umm, does he ever look lovely. Ummmm. Positively yummy. But we won't force them to do a thing. It'll be entirely up to them."
"That's right," Mandy said. "Now you got the idea, girl. Let freedom ring. Hey, how about another drink?"
"Coming right up," June said, grabbing the glasses and staggering just a little as she went to make more drinks. As she poured two fresh ones, she said: "I hope for that girl's sake that her mama never told her not to masturbate in the bath-tub, you know? I mean, that would be a terrible handicap. Norm and Gene would have an awful lot to overcome."
"Grrrr," Mandy said. "Let's not even think about that. When do you want to invite them over?"
"Oh, give 'em a day or so. Let 'em get settled." June said. "And then we strike!"
"Right," Mandy said. "Here's to the party."
They clinked their glasses together, nearly spilling their drinks. With difficulty, June focused her eyes on the new young couple.
"It's gonna be nice, huh? Six of us ... three couples all making it together. Whoooeeeee. I can hardly wait."
"You bet," Mandy said. "It's gonna be wonderful."